APC 4 – The Weave of My Life (Solved Questions)

1. Describe the plight of Dalit women with reference to The Weave of My Life.
(Harini)
Urmila Pawar is a female Dalit writer, who writes in the Marathi language. Her
autobiography, Aaydan has been translated into English by Maya Pandit and titled as
The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs. Pawar has recounted three generations
of Dalit women who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste. They make up
India’s poorest class.

Forbidden from performing anything but the most undesirable and unsanitary duties,
for centuries, Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature and
were therefore forced to live in isolated communities. The Weave of My Life is the
memoir of a so-called “untouchable” caste woman in India. The narrative reveals the
different aspects of the everyday life of Dalit women, and the manifold ways in which
caste asserts itself and grinds them down. The author’s point-of-view is woven from
two stands: that of a young girl uncomprehendingly witnessing instances of caste
injustice, patriarchal domination and the daily compulsions of poverty and of the
mature women looking back on these with the insights she gained later on her life.

Urmila gives details of what daily village life was like in the time of her grandmother,
mother, and in her childhood. The very first chapter in the book gives the reader a
look into an average Dalit woman’s daily life in the village. Urmila has vividly
described the harsh situation of the women in the village. She writes,

“Women from our village travelled to the market at Ratnagiri to

sell various things. They trudged the whole distance, with huge,
heavy bundles on their heads…”

The women had to climb up and down two hills and wade through two rivers and a
dusty path to get to the outside world from their interior village. Their husbands were
usually drunkards and good-for-nothings, who would violently bash their children
and them up. The women had to do the housework as well as travel to the market to
sell things and maintain the household. Their lives were pitiable. Their conversations
with each other would help them forget the long road and eased the strain of the
journey. Urmila reveals, “…that laughter often camouflaged a deep anguish in their
hearts for their wretched lives.”

The women, especially daughters-in-law, were not respected at all. They had to fetch
water from the well, clean the pots and plates, work alongside the men in the fields
until their backs broke, prepare dinner, eat last, then sleep late only to wake up early.
In addition, the woman had to behave as if she were a deaf and dumb creature. This
was not an isolated picture. An example would be Parvati, Urmila’s sister-in-law. She
worked like a maid in the house, doing everything except cooking. She was the last to
eat and sleep, and even though she worked hard the others treated her with deliberate
indifference, not realizing her true value. Urmila has confessed that she told her friend
that Parvati-vahini was a maidservant in their house as she didn’t like how she looked.
Parvati, however, just smiled when she came to know of this. “Her eyes reflected so
many things – helplessness, vulnerability, defencelessness! As I grew up I came to
understand that look more and more,” writes Urmila. She always felt guilty
afterwards.

In brief, the patriarchal hold on women’s lives had not changed. Dalit women faced
increasingly difficult times, both in public and private domains. They were affected to
the greatest extent by poverty and unemployment. They suffered more violence at the
hands of the dominating castes when there were caste riots. If in rural areas they lived
a subhuman existence in Maharwadas, in Mumbai they had to live in the slums on the
banks of gutters. In these conditions, women were responsible for running their
homes and for taking care of children and old people.

Even when labour was feminized, things did not drastically improve. Sexual violence
was always present, and there was no job security. The Dalit women had to face the
double bind of exploitation as workers and housewives. Urmila has described the
tough lives of the Dalit women both in her husband’s house as well as in her childhood.
The expectations did not change in the context of women working in offices. Urmila’s
husband, Harishchandra, expected her to be like the village women he had seen in his
youth.

Urmila has discussed the problems plaguing Dalits, both public and personal, frankly.
She has even criticised her own community too, revealing the ways in which Dalit
men made their women’s lives hell. An example in point is Urmila’s cousin, Susheela:

“She was married to a man in Paravatane. He was a drunkard

and Susheela’s mother-in-law was a tyrant. Both beat her up
mercilessly at the slightest pretext. They would drive her out of
the house with her young children even on dark stormy nights.”

Urmila’s father didn’t care about his niece either. Whenever Susheela ran to her
mother’s house, he would order her to be given some food and then sent back to her
in-laws. Later Susheela died a very untimely death. Worse, her case was not a rare one.
Many women (especially daughters-in-law) underwent harassment within their own
community.

It was not only husbands and family members who bashed up women. If a woman
was suspected to have erred, she was brought before the Panchayat for justice and
punishment.
Urmila narrates two heart-wrenching incidents in which two separate pregnant
women were judged guilty before the whole village and punished. They were made
to stand leaning forward, and women kicked them from behind till the child was
aborted. The villagers felt this was a valiant act of bravery. They felt proud that they
had protected the villages’ honour. In the second case, the woman even died from
pain in a week’s time. Urmila laments, “Why should this so-called honour, this
murderer of humanity, this root of self-destruction, be so deeply rooted in women’s
blood? Why?”

Thus even the women themselves did not unify together but used to behave badly
towards each other. Mothers-in-law would beat their daughters-in-law and make
them do a lot of work. The women would gossip about each other as they travelled to
Ratnagiri, as narrated by Urmila: “We could smell many such future quarrels from the
gossiping around us.”

The Dalit girls had no protection or security at all. Urmila writes of a horrifying
incident which she witnessed as a young girl unknowingly, where a temple priest had
sexually harassed a girl:

“Once we were playing outside as usual. The priest was busy

with his puja, But he did not come out as usual to give us the
Prasad. So we sat on the stairs patiently and waited for a long
time. Yet he did not come out. After a long time the door opened
and a Komti girl called Ulgawwa came out, her face wet with
tears, in a terrified state. Then the priest also came out but be left
without giving us any prasad. Suddenly I was frightened of the
priest.”

The girls would be further restricted once they started menstruating. Instead of being
comforted or explained things, they would be secluded by the other members of the
house. The girls would be banished to the back of the house with their own clothes
and bowl and plate. Urmila narrates how her mother used to scare her by telling
mythological stories. Thereafter, Urmila found it difficult to behave normally around
boys.

Even the games played after the marriage rituals at weddings were misogynistic, such
as one where the groom’s mother combs her new daughter-in-law’s hair, “finds” lice
and scolds her for being “filthy” as described by the author. “All these games were
basically intended to control the bride and keep her in check.”

Urmila has described the ritual performed after a husband’s death. The widow’s
mangalsutra is pulled out and broken at the dead husband’s feet. She is made to wear
green bangles, which are also broken. She is made to wear a string of flowers in her
hair, which is then pulled out and finally the kumkum on her forehead is wiped off
 with the toe of her husband’s left foot. Even in their widowhood, the grieving women
were not left in peace but made to perform a relic of the past. Urmila felt this was an
insult and nothing but a drama and a big show. She refused to perform it after her
husband’s death.

Thus, Dalit women, in most cases, did not have happy, comfortable or humane lives.
They were under constant pressure from harassment by the upper castes and even
within their own communities and in their personal lives as well. They had to face the
worst in all situations – being an unlucky combination of low-caste, female and poor.
Their suffering eased a bit after their conversion to Buddhism but there was still
hostility in their husbands’ homes and in the workplaces. Urmila Pawar has
highlighted their sad plight in her novel The Weave of My Life. She has urged the reader
to look at each and every person’s life as a social document, including Dalit women’s.

2. What attitudes to education do various characters reveal in Urmila Pawar’s

autobiography The Weave of My Life? What role do her teachers play in her
life? (Meera)
Urmila Pawar is a female Indian writer, who writes in the Marathi language. Her work
as a writer reflects her experiences of the difficulties of being a woman and a Dalit.
Pawar was born in the Konkan region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. She was
born in a Hindu Mahar family, belonging to a community that traditionally weaved
bamboo baskets. She has a Master of Arts in Marathi literature and won the Laxmibai
Tilak Award for the best-published autobiography given by the Maharashtra Sahitya
Parishad, for her Marathi autobiography Aaydan. It has been translated into English
and titled as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs which depict the lives of
different members of her family, her husband’s family, her neighbours and classmates
which are woven together in a narrative that gradually reveals different aspects of the
everyday life of Dalits, their lack of education and knowledge, and the manifold ways
in which caste asserts itself and grinds them down.

Urmila has talked extensively about education and her own experiences of school and
later, college. She has depicted the various attitudes held toward education by the
members of her family and others, in particular her father, who had a deep wish to
educate his children.

In the beginning of her autobiography Urmila has introduced her grandfather Hari
who joined the British Army and had a great knowledge of Sanskrit. Once when he
visited the village he saw how Brahmin priest cheated the villagers and practiced caste
discrimination while performing the rituals of marriage and ceremonial worship for
the lower castes. Due to his education and knowledge of Sanskrit Hari defeated the
priest and got rid of the humiliation by deciding that in future all lower-caste people
would perform all the rituals themselves.
In her grandfather’s time in their village they did not have proper school. Urmila
stated that “Just one ’pantoji’ used to teach only Brahmin kids on the verandah of a
Brahmin house.” Urmila’s grandfather had a great wish to educate his son, Urmila’s
father. His elder daughter’s husband Partavane was a havildar who had given his
house to Christian missionaries to set up a school. Since only the children of converted
Mahar-Christians went to that school, it was called the ‘school of the polluted convert.’
Urmila’s father would go to this school and he subsequently got a chance to go to
England but her grandfather had refused permission. England was way beyond his
imagination and her grandfather was afraid that he would not be able to see him alive
again.

Urmila’s father completed sixth standard and became a teacher in a school for
untouchable children, opened on a hill called ‘Sinal’ because women living there were
said to be sinners. But the name was actually a distorted form of ‘signal.’

Urmila called her father Baba. By the time Baba became a teacher, the Brahmin school
was moved from the verandah to the courtyard of the house. Children from other
castes started attending school with the Brahmin boys. Some Mahar children also went
to school but they had to sit outside in the courtyard. The teachers taught them and
examined their slates from a distance. They would hit the children with stones if they
made any mistakes. So naturally many children lost all interest in learning and bunked
school. Baba would be teaching in some far-off school as he was often transferred by
the authorities from school to school. He would constantly tell everybody to go to
school. He would go wild with anger and give them a good thrashing when he
discovered his nephews had bunked school. Once when Baba thrashed Urmila’s
cousin Babie so much her aunt made a big drama and all the village men humiliated
him. Baba thus stopped making his nephews go to school.

Urmila’s eldest sister, Shantiakka reached 4th standard, but the village school had no
further facility for 5th standard. So Baba, even though he could not afford it, enrolled
Shantiakka in 5th standard at Baba’s friend’s house at Partavane. His name was Jadhav
Guruji. He had five or six children of his own with whom Shantiakka started attending
a school opened by the school Board. Actually, nobody was in favour of her going to
school and her staying so far away from home. Urmila states, “All the women
complained, ‘Bah! What do women have to do with education? Ultimately she would
be blowing on the stove, wouldn’t she?’ or ‘Is she going to be a teacher, a Brahmin
lady, that she goes to school?’” This was the typical mindset of the villagers in such
days.

Urmila’s father died when she was in third standard. In her childhood, she would
absent herself from school. She would go and sit in Maruti temple near her school.
Her father’s death was due to jaundice. When she went along with her mother, Aaye,
to the hospital and near him, he wept like a child. He told Aaye, “Educate the children.”
On that day, she felt that he must not die but live. He had great hopes for Shantiakka’s
education but she never liked school. Urmila had a great impulse to go and tell him,
“Don’t worry. I’ll go to school. I’ll work hard and study. But please don’t die.” But he
died nonetheless. That was a Friday night. The next day was Saturday and she had
morning school. Urmila narrates, “I don’t know why but I packed my school bag and
asked Aaye, ‘Shall I go to school today?’ She just turned her face away. I do not
remember having shown such enthusiasm for school before and even afterwards.”

In childhood Urmila used many tricks to bunk school, such as hiding her frock. Her
teacher at that time, Herlekar Guruji, practised stringent discipline. Aaye had given
the teachers full permission to beat Urmila up because she firmly believed in the ‘spare
the rod and spoil the child.’ Urmila has stated that Baba had taught Aaye that
“education was impossible without punishment.” Urmila was a frequent target for
Herlekar Guruji as he always made her do the dirty work, like cleaning the board, the
class, collecting the dirt and disposing of it.

One very humiliating episode was when Urmila was ordered by the Guruji to clean
the mess even when it wasn’t her turn, and she refused. Guruji angrily slapped her
but her mother came to her support and rudely told him: “I want education for my
children so that their future will be better. And you treat my girl like this? How dare
you?” After that Guruji never beat her and Urmila started considering her mother a
great support. Urmila failed 4th standard and she cried a lot. Her brother’s friend
Subhash Desai comforted her, telling her to take the scholarship examination and thus
lessened her tension to a great extent.

When Urmila was in 5th standard her class teacher was a Brahmin woman called
Biwalkar Madam. She was a stickler for cleanliness. On Saturday she used to make
the students stand in a line and closely examined their nails, fingers, teeth, eyes, ears
and nose with the same intensity of a doctor examining his patient. Cleanliness was
Urmila’s worst enemy. Most of the time she went without a bath for 2 or 3 days. She
would just wash her face, hands and feet and go off to school. She played in the mud
and naturally her hair looked dirty and she also had a bad habit of spitting. Biwalkar
Madam tried very hard to teach her clean habits, and even advised her to get a new
frock stitched from the money (12 rupees) which she got as a result of passing the
scholarship examination. But Urmila faithfully gave it to her mother.

In 8th standard Urmila had not progressed much beyond the alphabet in English
subject. Her English teacher Nene could always target her in class by asking her about
tenses, idioms, phrases and spelling and when she could not answer, he would speak
in an extremely satirical way. In her last year of school, Urmila was good in all subjects
except English. Teachers like Deshpande for Marathi, Limaye for Sanskrit and Sohoni
for Geography taught them very well without prejudices. When Urmila was in
primary school she had a teacher called Mahadik. He prepared a beautiful mud model
of India on which he marked the states, mountains, major rivers so well the map was
imprinted upon Urmila’s mind. Even while she was studying Urmila had the habit of
writing nice long letters in a very ornate language to her future husband. “That is why
my essay writing must have improved,” writes Urmila. In 11th standard Urmila chose
private coaching class where her teacher Godbole finally helped her reach the required
35% pass mark in English. She stated, “my boat finally arrived at the harbour of
success.”

When Urmila was in 9th standard, her Marathi teacher Vasantrao Deshpande decided
to stage a one-act play. He thought Urmila looked funny enough for the king’s role.
Urmila was asked to speak in low-pitched loud voice while doing the role of the king
for comedic effect. People remembered her role for quite a long time, calling her ‘your
royal highness’ when they saw her passing by. In those days Marathi stage
performance was very popular. Vasantrao Deshpande was also an amateur theatre
artist, and he founded a group called Natraj Sewa Mandal. Those days women artists
were difficult to get, they had to be hired from Bombay. After matriculation
examination, they forced Urmila and her friend Sumati to be members of the group.
Urmila jokes in her autobiography, “Maybe they believed in our histrionic abilities!”
Thus, her teacher helped Urmila to be more confident through acting.

Sometime after her marriage Urmila and her husband, Harishchandra, moved to
Mumbai. She started working in an office, which was quite close to Siddhartha College.
She desperately wanted to complete her education which she had left incomplete in
Ratnagiri. When she asked for her husband’s consent, he said, “Look, you can do what
you like only after finishing your daily chores in the house. Cooking, looking after
children, and all that stuff. If you think you can do this and get more education, fine!”
It was actually his way of saying ‘No,’ but Urmila took it up as a challenge. Somehow,
even with a fractured leg, she managed to complete her studies and became a graduate
in B.A. Marathi Literature with Second Class. Harishchandra was very happy and
would tell everybody that his wife was a graduate. He even put Urmila’s B.A.
certificate in a frame and hung it on a wall in their house.

Because of Harishchandra’s encouragement and her newly-earned confidence that she

could do well academically, Urmila enrolled herself for M.A. She had a great desire
for further education. However, her husband now wanted her to pay more attention
to the house and the children. She did not agree and pointed out that she did pay
attention to the house, children and their health and that she was going to study only
in her spare time. She asked him to come home early and pay attention to the children’s
studies. But Harishchandra firmly believed that looking after the house was the sole
responsibility of the woman. He thought a man has a right to behave any way he likes.
This angered Urmila and led to fights which went on and on.
 Still Urmila passed her M.A. with a Second Class. This time there was no reaction from
her husband, though he would still tell his friends without fail that his wife was now
an M.A. But the M.A. certificate was not framed by Harishchandra.

Thus we come to know how each character’s attitude was toward education in The
Weave of My Life. Urmila’s father deeply wanted all of his children, even daughters to
be educated and be independent on their own feet. Even Urmila, though she hated
school when she was young, grew up and studied and got an M.A. She was in fact
publicly felicitated for being the first woman from the Konkan region to have obtained
an M.A. while taking care of her house, children and a job.

3. Discuss how the caste prejudice is reflected in The Weave of My Life. (Harini)
Urmila Pawar is a female Indian writer, who writes in the Marathi language. Her work
as a writer reflects her experiences of the difficulties of being a woman and a Dalit.
Pawar was born in the Konkan region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. She was
born in a Hindu Mahar family, belonging to a community that traditionally weaved
bamboo baskets. She has a Master of Arts in Marathi literature and won the Laxmibai
Tilak Award for the best-published autobiography given by the Maharashtra Sahitya
Parishad, for her Marathi autobiography Aaydan. It has been translated into English
and titled as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs.

Urmila has written extensively on incidents of caste prejudice in her autobiography,

some of which she had experienced first-hand. She has depicted the lives of different
members of her family, her husband’s family, her neighbours and classmates which
are woven together in a narrative that gradually reveals different aspects of the
everyday life of Dalits, their lack of education and knowledge, and the manifold ways
in which caste asserts itself and grinds them down.

In the first chapter, when Urmila talks about the women who come from the village
to Ratnagiri to sell their things such as firewood, bamboo, rice, mangoes, etc. When
they were walking back a bunch of Kulwadi women coming from behind would cross
them, taking care to avoid their touch. Someone would notice that and flare up,
abusing them for keeping a distance as if they were Brahmin women.

Urmila also goes on to narrate an incident about her great grandfather, Hari. He went
to Pune and joined the Bombay army. He was educated. Once when he visited the
village he saw how a Brahmin priest cheated the villagers and practised caste
discrimination while performing the rituals of marriage and ceremonial worship for
the lower castes. He used to climb a nearby tree and mutter some chants, because he
did not want to be polluted by the Mahar people. He would sprinkle some water on
the coins kept as his dakshina to wash away the pollution. If one wanted to consult
the priest he had to wait endlessly outside the priest’s house, beyond the courtyard.
Hari felt it was humiliating to have the rituals conducted from a distance. He called a
meeting of the villagers. Due to his education and knowledge of Sanskrit Hari
defeated the priest and decided that in future all lower-caste people would perform
all the rituals themselves.

There was even caste discrimination in education. There was only a ‘pantoji’ teaching
only Brahmin kids on the verandah of a Brahmin house. Later on the school moved to
the courtyard and a few other children from other castes started attending school with
the Brahmin boys. Some low-caste children also went to school but they had to sit
outside the courtyard. The teachers taught and examined their slates from a distance.
They would hit the children with stones if they made any mistakes. Naturally,
Urmila’s cousins lost all interest in learning and frequently bunked school.

Even when Urmila’s elder sister, Shantiakka got a job in the mental hospital, she was
abused by a mentally disturbed woman there, who refused to take food from her
hands because she had come to know Akka was a dalit. Baba reasoned with his
daughter that she was a mad person but Akka was sane and therefore should behave
like a sane person.

During the Holi festival the Mahar women would go around the houses of the upper
caste Kulwadis, Marathas and brahmins to beg for festive food. All of them served the
upper caste in different ways throughout the year. Someone had labored in the fields;
woven baskets of various shapes and sizes for them. They would ask to be
compensated. But all they got was stale pieces of bhakri or rice, not good food. The
Kulwadi women who gave them food would pour everything together in their baskets
– dal, vegetables, kheer all poured on rice, in a mixed mound, as an insult.

An episode that Urmila has recaptured in a vivid manner that illustrates caste
discrimination is of her going to buy some pickle from the ‘Pandit’ family who lived
opposite them, across the road. At that time, Urmila’s mother used to be ill frequently
with fever, stomach aches or diphtheria. At such times she would lose her appetite
and could only eat food if there was some pickle or fish to go with it. Urmila would
have to take care to not touch or even let her shadow fall on the things lying around
the Pandit family’s house. She would stand on the lowest cement step and shout and
call out for a long time like a beggar or thief before anyone would come out to see
what she wanted. After the Pandit Kaku would bring some pickle on a plantain leaf,
she would keep it on a step for Urmila to pick up. Urmila, too, would keep the paisa
coins on a step, on which the lady would sprinkle water to cleanse them of “pollution”
before collecting them! The same thing happened when Urmila had to drop off the
baskets that her mother had woven for customers. They would drop coins in her
hands from above, avoiding contact, “as if their hands would have burnt had they
touched her.” They too, would sprinkle water on the baskets she kept at the threshold.

Another time Urmila’s female classmates decided to get together and cook a meal.
However, they wanted to avoid asking Urmila to bring something. They asked her to
bring money. The girls cooked a simple but tasty meal of rice, dal and vegetables. They
did not allow Urmila to touch anything though they all ate together. She really enjoyed
the meal but was horrified to hear them gossiping about the way she ate the next day
– “She ate like a monster,” or “She ate so much of everything!” Even the small children
had started to discriminate. She felt very humiliated.

To earn a little more money Aaye had built two small rooms adjacent to their house.
She rented them to needy people. Once, a Muslim couple from Mumbai rented them.
The man was called Mohammed and his wife, Haseena. Later, Urmila was introduced
to Haseena’s sister Baby and her daughter Saida. All three girls became fast friends.
During Id Baby gave Urmila some biryani that they made. Haseena wanted Baby and
Saida to take some biryani to their relatives in the Muslim locality. They asked Urmila
to go with them and she readily agreed. When they reached there, a plump woman
came out and asked them why they had to go and stay at “that Mahar’s house?” Baby
found it embarrassing and she introduced Urmila as the landlady’s daughter. The
woman’s face twisted and she ordered Urmila to sit down on a bench outside and
signalled both Baby and Saida to follow her inside. Urmila wanted to get up and walk
off because of the humiliation, but didn’t. When the two girls finally came out they
just started walking home without glancing at Urmila. When she offered to carry the
bag with the biryani container they scowled and refused. From that day, they began
to behave like strangers towards her as a result of which Urmila wept bitterly and was
upset for quite some time.

After her marriage Urmila and her husband had a lot of trouble finding a room for
rent due to caste discrimination. Once in Chiplun, their landlady’s elder daughter
came to borrow a sari from Urmila. Urmila gave her own white wedding sari to wear,
upon which the daughter was dumbstruck, as she realized they were Dalits (who had
converted to Buddhism). Buddhist brides wore white saris at their weddings. After a
month, the sari was returned in a spoiled state, and when Urmila complained, the
landlady told her to look for another room. Yet another time they were evicted by a
landlady, that too, an educated municipal councillor, in Ratnagiri.

At last when they finally got a flat in Mumbai, yet more shocks awaited them. Urmila’s
colleague had taken the keys on the pretext of getting the electricity connections done.
However, he had instead sublet the room to an architect on the sly. Urmila’s brother-
in-law helped them by pretending to only move in their luggage temporarily while
they sorted everything out, before asking the architect to get out with his things. A big
drama followed this order as many rich and powerful relatives of the architect came
and shouted at Urmila, her husband and their relatives that had come there to help
them. They abused them for their low caste and for being “mean, dirty, mean,
uncivilized,” narrates Urmila.
Even in Mumbai, Urmila’s children felt caste discrimination, in subtle ways. When
Urmila’s youngest daughter Manini had a birthday celebration, she invited her friend
Kishori and her brother to eat the cake with them. Kishori’s brother told his mother
that he had seen photographs of Ambedkar and Buddha in their house. The next day,
Kishori’s mother came and abused Urmila without stepping inside, asking her why
she did not say she belonged to low-caste. The woman asked her to not give her
daughter anything to eat if she came to their house, stating that they were Marathas
and could not eat with Urmila’s family. After the incident, Kishori stopped coming to
their house, and Manini complained to Urmila that she would not talk to her, but after
some days Kishori started coming again. Urmila thought there was a lesson for the
grownups in this.

Later on, Urmila’s brother and her son even committed suicide due to the bias against
them. In Urmila’s brother, Krishna’s case, there was some corruption in the ration
cards office where he worked. The needle of suspicion turned to him. He had tried
desperately to prove his innocence but the system closed its ears to him. Finally Bhai
sent his wife and children to his brother and mother and hanged himself. He had given
a box to his neighbour, containing two slips of paper: one was addressed to Aai where
he wrote, ‘Only you will believe that I am innocent.’ The other one was for his wife,
which said, ‘Sushila, I have been unjust to you and the children; but please forgive me
if you can!”

Urmila’s son, Mandar was very intelligent. He passed his tenth standard examination
with excellent marks. Two years later he quite effortlessly found a place in the medical
college after completing his school leaving examinations. Urmila and Harishchandra
had not realized what was happening to him. The first year had been quite stressful.
During the second year, he had felt the stress again and again. Even when Urmila
expressed her concerns to his father, Harishchandra had simply scolded his son for
not paying more attention to studies. One day Mandar had returned from the hostel
and said that he did not want to study in that college anymore and wanted to change
his college, but his father dismissed him. Finally he jumped in front of a train. Later,
one of Urmila’s friends told her that her husband taught in the same college and that
everyone was very anti-reservation there. Urmila laments at that point,

“The opposition is on levels … explicit … implicit … My brother

had ended his life out of frustration and now my son had chosen
the same path!”

Thus, Urmila has covered many cases of caste prejudice or bias, direct or indirect, that
relentlessly knocked down so many of the people of her community, and even claimed
the lives of some of her relatives. She has highlighted the shadow of caste that hangs
upon the Dalits even today. The Weave of My Life has systematically highlighted caste
discrimination, and condemned it.
4. Celebration of Holi festival. (Aishwarya) (SHORT NOTE)
Urmila Pawar is a major Dalit woman writer born in the Mahar community. Well
known as an activist in the dalit and feminist struggle in Maharashtra, she is also an
acclaimed short story writer and a dalit feminist historian who has been the target of
attacks from fundamental organizations. Her autobiography, Aaydan, written in
Marathi and translated by Maya Pandit into English as The Weave of My Life, portrays
the conditions of a subhuman existence of an entire community shamelessly exploited
by the upper caste, reduced to a state of beast of burdens and extremely manipulated.
Urmila has recounted three generations of Dalits who struggled to overcome the
burden of their caste. The first half of the book is full of general stories about her
relatives and her childhood and gives the reader a look into their culture. The second
half focuses more on specifics of her life story. Urmila has beautifully described
different festivals celebrated in the novel. One of the important festivals was Holi, or
Shimga.

Every village would celebrate Holi on different dates of the Marathi calendar. The
Shimga which some of the people celebrated on the third day from the moonless night
in the month of Phalgun, was called ‘Tersa Shimga.’ The month of Phalgun falls
between mid-February to mid-March in the English calendar. The festival marked the
beginning of summer. The custom was to eat sweet chapattis made of jaggery and
arhar dal on Shimga day and the next day was known as Dhulwad. It is generally
celebrated by playing with dirt; there is a lot of mud slinging, drinking, and eating
mutton bondas. Tersa Shimga, according to the calendar, comes much before the real
Shimga day. So those people who celebrated Tersa Shimga were called gluttons, as
they had brought the date of the Shimga forward for the love of food.

Some villages, taking inspiration from the Tersa Shimga, started a new custom of
celebrating Holi on the eighth or ninth day from the moonless night in Phalgun. This
came to be called Sayama’s Holi. The word meant ‘control’ in Marathi. The rest of the
village, however, celebrated Holi on the fifteenth day, that is, on the full moon night,
as was the true custom. This would be the real common Holi. But some people
celebrated Holi even after this. This was called Bhadrecha (auspicious) Shimga. Poor
people, who felt sad to see others celebrating various festivals till the full moon day,
would celebrate the Shimga after everybody else had done so. So this last Shimga was
supposed to be auspicious for them. That is what the elderly people would tell Urmila
and the other children. Thus, Holi was celebrated in many different ways.

In Urmila’s village, it was customary to celebrate Tersa Shimga. On the hill beyond
the river of their village, there was a huge rock known as Chandaki Devi’s rock. The
young men of the village would cover the rock with dry leaves and grass a week
before the festival. On the day of Holi all the old and young men and children in the
villages would go to this rock on the hill, playing a band. There they would put
turmeric and kumkum on the covered rock, worship it, break a coconut, and then set
it on fire. They would pray to the lord to keep their children happy. Then they would
bellow, beating their palms against their mouths. This would be followed by obscene
curses and shouts which could be heard in the villages around. It was believed that
once the rock was set on fire, the people’s problems too were burnt off.

After setting fire to Chandaki’s Rock in the morning, young men would go to the forest
to collect wood for the village Holi. There they would already have identified huge
trees for burning during Holi. It was an honour given to the Mahars to deliver the first
blow to the tree. The task of carrying the huge trees down the slope of the hills to the
Shambhu temple in the village would make people froth at the mouth. Then the huge
trees would be made to stand in front of the temple where Holi would be celebrated.
People from the Maratha, Bhandari and Kulwadi castes would just touch the tree n
name but the real tough labour would be for the Mahars to perform: they would have
to lift the heavy tree trunk and make it stand. But once the Holi rituals and celebrations
started, the Mahars would be simply ignored. They had no place in it.

At dusk the Marathas, Bhandaris and Kulwadis would worship the Holi and then set
the trees on fire. This done, they would start praying loudly. This ceremony was called
garhane. It featured lots of prayers for the village’s well-being and averting calamities,
and for diverting the calamities to the Mahars. Then the ritual of howling and cursing
began. Terrible curses would target the Mahars, who did not dare lodge a protest
against this. The upper caste men who had prestige would dance around the Holi,
matching their steps to the drumbeats. They would be the ones to carry the palanquin
of god. None of the Mahars would be allowed to touch it. But taking advantage of the
dust and gulal flying around, Mahar boys would run to take the palanquin on their
shoulders, and some even succeeded. When this deception was noticed, quarrels and
fights would break out.

On the Holi day, the Marathas and brahmins would make sweet chappatis called
puran poli, and in the dalits’ houses they would cook lentils called pavata or varana.
This was the crop that would be ready around Holi. In the evening the folk drama,
khele, started. There would be the play on King Chandrasen and his daughter
Leelavati, humorous interludes, much of dancing and singing, and it would all
conclude with Ravana and his army appearing fearsomely on the stage. By then it
would be daybreak and the people walked back homewards.

During the Holi festival, the Mahar women would go around the houses of the upper
caste Kulwadis, Marathas and brahmins to beg for festive food. All of them served the
upper caste in different ways throughout the year. Someone had labored in the fields;
woven baskets of various shapes and sizes for them. They would ask to be
compensated. But all they got was stale pieces of bhakri or rice, not good food.
Furthermore, the Kulwadi women who gave them food would pour everything
 together in their baskets – dal, vegetables, kheer all poured on rice, in a mixed mound,
as an insult.

Holi was also the season for mangoes, corinda berries, cashew bulbs and many other
local fruit. There would be nothing to eat in the house except rice and bhakri. So
Urmila would love to eat cashew bulbs and the children would even make wine from
them. These are the ways in which the celebration of Holi was depicted in the novel.
Thus, Holi was celebrated in many different ways.

5. Describe the childhood memories of Urmila Pawar. (Radha)

Urmila Pawar is a major Dalit woman writer born in the Mahar community. Well
known as an activist in the dalit and feminist struggle in Maharashtra, she is also an
acclaimed short story writer and a dalit feminist historian who has been the target of
attacks from fundamental organizations. She is a literary personality known for her
short story writings in Marathi literature.

Her autobiography, Aaydan, written in Marathi and translated by Maya Pandit into
English as The Weave of My Life, portrays the conditions of a subhuman existence of an
entire community shamelessly exploited by the upper caste, reduced to a state of beast
of burdens and extremely marginalized.

Urmila’s Childhood Memories

Aaydan means – weaving of cane baskets. It was the main economic activity of the
Mahar community to which Urmila belonged.

Describing the childhood memories in the novel, Urmila portrays a vivid description
of a village called Ratnagiri. She describes that women from her native village
travelled to the market at Ratnagiri to sell various things. They start their journey from
early in the morning carrying the heavy loads on their shoulders and heads.

The village held a terrific attraction for the children of the village. Whenever there was
a holiday and no school they used to rush to the village from Ratnagiri, which was
located in a far-flung corner among the hills.

Swimming in the rivers, plucking raw mangoes and berries to eat, roaming in the hills,
all these attractions drew the children like a magnet. Listening to the gossip was a
great fun in childhood days.

Being a child they would talk freely without any restraint in language, wind-robust
full of various tones, rhythms which evoked many culture and smell of things from
different places.

Urmila refers to the tragic death of her father when she was in third standard. He
mother was not visiting any community functions or other programmes but doing her
work and nurturing children in her own capacity.
One of the childhood memories includes the incident of ‘cleanliness.’ When Urmila
was in fifth standard, students in the class received a pat on their backs whereas dirty
students got scolded. However, Urmila’s worst enemy was cleanliness and she never
knew how to keep herself clean and look nice.

She had only two sets of clothing in her schooldays, which she wore alternatively for
three or four days. They were washing their clothes only once a week. Furthermore,
she had the habit of spitting around which was very objectionable for others as Urmila
was unaware that this was a bad habit.

Urmila specifically thanked her teacher Biwalkar Madam who had taught her good
manners and importance of cleanliness. She got a scholarship of 12 rupees in the
fourth standard which was for the first time.

Urmila has given very minute details of oppression and exploitation of girl children
and women. Sometimes the humiliation is so much that it hits the reader with their
sensibility. The girls and women were badly exploited by the school boys and other
men and were sexually harassed too.

As a priest, Urmila’s father whom she referred to affectionately as ‘Baba,’ conducted

all kinds of ceremonies for the village people and all the children also attended those
rituals. Aadgaon was the native place of Urmila, but for her education purpose her
family was staying in Ratnagiri.

Urmila Pawar recollects the schooldays memories. One day her classmates at school
had decided to cook a meal. They had discussed what everyone should bring; rice,
lentils and so on. Urmila remembers the incident – she asked, “What should I bring?”
“Nothing,” they said. “You must bring some money.”

Urmila writes of this painful incident. “They didn’t allow me to touch anything.”
“However, we all ate together … girls were whispering in groups about how much I
ate.” Children show signs of caste discrimination and untouchability as well as poor
people are humiliated for their hunger.

Urmila had also portrayed the narration of wife beating incidents in the house as well
as in front of the community. Urmila describes a Maruti temple near her school that
whenever she felt like giving school a miss she would go and sit in the temple. The
kids of the village rarely visited the festivals of Gauri and Ganpati.

She also describes her relationship: love relationship with Harishchandra when she
was in the school, how she came close to him and sit for long hours chatting with him.
She also describes a secret meeting with him.

She also gives a narration of a pathetic incident of beating a pregnant woman only
based on blind faith that is touching as well alarming for the generations to follow.
This type of misunderstanding happens with Urmila when one day she was found
 missing until late night. That day she was with Harishchandra opposite to school gate
near seashore. However, the entire family thought that some ghost has occupied her
and this created confusion in the family.

She also describes one incident when it was known that it was beginning of the menses
marked the imposition of restrictions on girls. It had meant that they were no longer
children and had grown up and became women.

Thus all these small incidents made a wonderful childhood memory in Urmila
Pawar’s life.

6. The Weave of My Life is a reflection of the struggle and endurance of the Dalit
community. Elaborate with examples from the novel. (Pragati)
Urmila Pawar is a major dalit woman writer. She was born in the dalit community of
the Mahars. Her autobiography, Aaydan, called The Weave of my Life in its English
translation, has been yet another landmark, a signpost in the history of dalit writing
in Marathi. The first frame of reference is that of dalit women’s autobiographical
writing in Marathi. In The Weave of My Life many great people’s comments are also
there for example.

The Weave of My Life portrays the conditions of subhuman existence of an entire

community, shamelessly exploited by the upper castes, reduced to a status of beasts
of burdens, extremely marginalized. The Mahars were supposed to work hard during
the preparations of festivals like Holi, but they were not entitled to participate in it
like the upper castes. If they tried to do so they were beaten until they bled. They were
made to dispose off dead animals; they were entitled only to leftovers of food even on
festive occasions.

Women’s Condition

The Mahar women’s condition was very poor at that period of the time. They had to
travel to the market at Ratnagiri to sell various things. During travelling, they had to
carry a lot of heavy bundles with them such as firewood or grass, rice or semolina,
long pieces of bamboo, baskets of ripe or raw mangoes. The loads were heavy enough
to break their necks. They travelled through a very difficult terrain. They would start
their journey to Ratnagiri early in the morning. The road between the village and
Ratnagiri was difficult to negotiate as it wound up and down the hills. It was quite an
exhausting trip.

During rainy season, life hung by a thin thread. Women were compelled to make the
journey to the market for they had to sell their wares for survival: bundles of firewood
or rice bags or grass or whatever merchandise, covered with leaves or woollen
blankets. The women were very busy in their work. They were not free enough to give
their sufficient time to their children.
Daughters-in-law were always despised and bashed up. The women had to trudge
through various small lanes and nooks and corners of the town to sell the heavy loads
on their heads.

Caste Discrimination

Children from castes like Bhandaris and Kunbis started attending school with the
brahmin boys. But the people of brahmin society didn’t want children of
different/lower castes sitting and studying alongside them. Some Mahar children also
went to school but they were not allowed to sit with them, so they had to sit outside
in the courtyard. The teachers also discriminated against them. They taught them and
examined their slates from a distance. If the children made any mistakes, they were
hit with stones by the teachers.

When the British established their rule over Burma, they arrested King Thiba and kept
him under home arrest in Ratnagiri from 1890. Occasionally, Urmila’s mother went to
his bungalow in hope of receiving a gift. She told her children that they could not walk
upright before the king before the king. They had to bend down and almost crawl like
a child while entering through a very small door to approach him. Then they would
catch the silver rupee or some other coin which the king threw at them and had to
return the same way, without turning their backs on the king.

There was also a terrible epidemic of plague and cholera. Poor people were dying like
flies. Medicines were scarce, and for the most part, medicines were not available for
the poor.

Their situation was really very problematic and they lived in constant poverty. The
upper caste people did not consider them a normal human being. When the dalit
people went to their house, they treated them as beggars and untouchables, as
illustrated by the episode of the author buying pickles from a Pandit’s house. But the
Dalits didn’t have the guts to counter the upper castes, in spite of the deliberate insults
repeatedly heaped on them. The upper-class society’s behaviour towards them was
unbearable.

The Dalits were supposed to collect their drinking water from a particular part of the
river. There was an incident where one day, early in the morning, people from the
Maratha community deliberately took their buffaloes and bullocks to the Dalits’
designated part of the river to wash them. Due to this the dalit women had to wait a
long time before the muddied water settled down and they could collect some clean
drinking water.

Urmila belonged to a poor family. She had not enough clothes to wear. She always
wore very dirty clothes. One day Urmila got a scholarship in school. Her teacher told
her to get some nice frocks stitched for herself from the scholarship money. But all her
dreams were broken when Urmila gave her mother the scholarship money. Her
 mother was always worrying as to how to fulfil all the basic needs of the house
without much money. But when Urmila told her of the scholarship award, she got
very happy and decided to visit her aunt with the money. Urmila was very
disappointed and all her dreams of wearing new frocks were dashed.

Urmila’s classmates talked about the dishes they ate like poli and dadape puhe, ladu,
modak, puranpoli. But Urmila never tasted these food items. She knew very well that
she belonged to a poor as well as a dalit family, so she knew her limit.

In this way, the novel reflects the various struggles endured by the Dalit community
such as poverty, casteism, discrimination, etc.

7. Comment on the sad and unpleasant experiences of Urmila Pawar’s

childhood due to the caste discrimination against Dalits. (Aishwarya)
Urmila Pawar is a major dalit woman writer born in the dalit community of Mahars.
Well known as an activist in the dalit and feminist struggle in Maharashtra, she is an
acclaimed short story writer and a dalit feminist historian who has been the target of
attacks from fundamental organizations.

Urmila Pawar has won the Laxmibai Tilak award for the best-published
autobiography given by the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad for her Marathi
autobiography, Aaydan, which has been translated into English as The Weave of My Life.
The Weave of My Life portrays the conditions of a subhuman existence of an entire
community shamelessly exploited by the upper caste, reduced to a state of beasts of
burdens, extremely marginalized.

Aaydan means ‘weaving of the cane baskets.’ It was the main economic activity of the
Mahar community to which Urmila belonged. She was born in the Konkan region of
the Indian state of Maharashtra. Describing the childhood memories in the novel
Urmila portrays a description of her native village and the nearby town, Ratnagiri.
She gives details of what daily village life was like in the time of her grandmother,
mother and in her childhood. Urmila looks at herself as a child, daughter, wife and
mother as objectively as she does at Harishchandra as a husband.

Urmila has talked about the various sad and humiliating memories of her childhood
in her autobiography. Most of the incidents were due to a direct or indirect
discrimination against her because of her low caste.

Urmila has narrated the death of her father due to jaundice. Her father died when she
was in third standard. He was just fifty-eight. Her mother thereafter did not visit any
community functions or other programs but would engage herself in weaving baskets
and doing her household work and nurturing the children in her own capacity.
After Baba’s death Aaye became more rigid in the case of Urmila’s education as Aaye
had promised Baba that she would educate their daughter. Aaye thus beat Urmila a
lot when she used to bunk school.

Urmila has also described her schooldays. In the fourth standard, she had a teacher
called Herlekar Guruji. He practiced stringent discipline and half of that was directed
towards Urmila. She was the frequent target for Herlekar Guruji. He always made her
do the dirty work like cleaning the board, the class, colleting the dirt and disposing it
off. Beside the verandah of the school was used as a toilet by buffaloes and cows.
Students of every class took turns cleaning it. But when it was the turn of Urmila’s
class, she alone was forced to clean the entire mess. The reason was simple. Urmila
had a cow called Kapila at home. Guruji firmly believed that it was Urmila’s cow who
was the only culprit. One day Guruji asked her to clean the mess. It was not even the
turn of her class. Still he told her to do it because she was late that day. And when she
refused he slapped her very hard in class.

At the end of the year Urmila failed fourth standard. As Guruji announced her result
in the class, children began to laugh at her. The thought of sitting in Herlekar Guruji’s
class for another year petrified her. Her brother thrashed her hard by hitting her with
a stick on Urmila’s back. But her mother didn’t react but sat quietly doing her work,
drinking her tears.

When Urmila was in fifth standard she had a brahmin teacher called Biwalkar madam
as her class teacher. She was a stickler for cleanliness. She always examined the nails,
fingers, teeth, eyes, ears and nose of each and every student and if they were not
cleaned properly received a terrific thrashing from her and Urmila was among them.
Cleanliness seemed to be her worst enemy. Her mother was too busy with her work
to pay any attention to her. Urmila only took a bath when she wanted to. She would
play in the mud and naturally her hair looked like an upturned bird’s nest. She never
knew how to keep herself clean or make herself look nice. Only once a week she would
have a bath and have her hair cleaned with washing soda and very hot water. She had
only two sets of clothes, which she wore alternatively for three or four days. Her dirty
clothes would make Biwalkar ma’am very angry. Biwalkar tried very hard to teach
her clean habits.

When Urmila was in fifth standard she received the colossal sum of 12 rupees as the
first installment of her scholarship. Biwalkar madam gave her the money and told her
to ask her mother to make two nice frocks for Urmila, to buy a good soap and start
washing her dirty clothes and to start bathing every day. The boy in the class stared
at her and started laughing because now they knew that her clothes were dirty and
she didn’t bathe every day. Urmila died a million deaths at the humiliation. But when
Urmila told Aaye about the scholarship her mother’s face lit up and she made her own
plans on using the money and all her dreams crashed. Urmila was very angry at Aaye.
One day Urmila’s classmates decided to cook a meal. They discussed what everyone
must bring such as rice, lentils. and so on. Urmila approached them, eager to
participate in the cooking. But when she asked what she should bring, they replied
‘nothing,’ and asked her to bring some money. The girls did not allow Urmila to touch
anything though they all ate together. The next day the girls whispered in groups
about how much Urmila ate – “she ate like a monster,” “she ate like a goat,” “she ate
so much of everything.” It was very humiliating and Urmila died a thousand deaths
that day.

To earn a little more money Aaye had built two small rooms adjacent to their house.
She rented them to needy people. Once, a Muslim couple from Mumbai rented them.
The man was called Mohammed and his wife, Haseena. Later, Urmila was introduced
to Haseena’s sister Baby and her daughter Saida. All three girls became fast friends.
During Id Baby gave Urmila some biryani that hey made. Haseena wanted Baby and
Saida to take some biryani to their relatives in the Muslim locality. They asked Urmila
to go with them and she readily agreed. When they reached there, a plump woman
came out and asked them why they had to go and stay at “that Mahar’s house?” Baby
found it embarrassing and she introduced Urmila as the landlady’s daughter. The
woman’s face twisted and she ordered Urmila to sit down on a bench outside and
signalled both Baby and Saida to follow her inside. Urmila wanted to get up and walk
off because of the humiliation, but didn’t. When the two girls finally came out they
just started walking home without glancing at Urmila. When she offered to carry the
bag with the biryani container they scowled and refused. From that day, they began
to behave like strangers towards her as a result of which Urmila wept bitterly and was
upset for quite some time.

Urmila has given very minute details of oppression and exploitation of girl child and
women. Sometimes the humiliation is so much that it hits the readers in their
sensitivity. The girls and women were badly exploited by the men and sexually
harassed. Children showed signs of caste discrimination and untouchability. Poor
people were humiliated for their hunger. Urmila even narrates a pathetic and
alarming incident of beating a pregnant woman based on a blind faith.

Thus, the above childhood incidents and experiences in the life of Urmila Pawar
proved to be sad and unpleasant which also displays the caste discrimination that she
had to face because she was a Dalit. Urmila Pawar’s language changes perceptibly as
she grows throughout the novel. Urmila’s language mirrors the journey she had made
from the days when she avoided baths and school to a time when she yearned for
knowledge and visited dalit communities advising women on cleanliness and hygiene.
There is one feature of her persona that runs through the entire account – her ironic
view of life and her irrepressible sense of humour.
8. Examine The Weave of My Life as an autobiography. (Aishwarya)
Urmila Pawar is a female Indian writer who writes in Marathi. Her work as a writer
reflects her experiences of the difficulties of being a Dalit woman. Pawar’s frank and
direct style has made her controversial. She is an acclaimed short story writer and a
dalit feminist historian who has been the target of attacks from fundamental
organizations.

Aaydan, her autobiography written in Marathi, has been translated into English by
Maya Pandit and titled as the Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs. It portrays
the conditions of a subhuman existence of an entire community shamelessly exploited
by the upper caste, reduced to a state of beast of burdens, extremely marginalized.
Urmila Pawar has recounted three generations of Dalit women who struggled to
overcome the burden of their caste.

People write memoirs for different reasons. Some write memoirs because they are
paid a lot of money to give their version of important eras or events in which they
were pivotal players. Some want to even the score, set the record straight or tell their
story so others might learn from their experiences. Urmila’s reasons for writing The
Weave of My Life was the latter.

Dalit or untouchables make up India’s poorest class. Dalits were believed to be racially
inferior and polluted by nature for centuries and were therefore forced to live in
isolated communities. The first half of the book is full of general stories about her
relatives and her childhood and gives the readers a look into their culture. The second
half focuses more on specific of her life history. Urmila Pawar discusses in the novel
three phases of her life – childhood, marriage and becoming an activist and a writer.

Urmila describes how the dalit women of her native village had to climb two
mountains to go to the market at the nearest town, Ratnagiri, to sell their goods and
come back to the village. Still they were not given much importance from their families
and they had to struggle for their own identity.

Urmila Pawar’s childhood was full of pain as she was a poor Dalit girl and the last
child. She was always ignored because of her identity. In the first phase of her life i.e.,
her childhood she went through many bitter and happy experiences.

She describes how her great grandfather, Hari, challenged a casteist brahmin priest to
show his real skills of Pranayam by staying in a closed pit for eight days. Hari survived
through eight days and won and from that day on various rituals in the nine
surrounding villages was given to Hari. It was this tradition that Urmila’s family had
inherited. Then she starts to describe her childhood. She describes her father’s death
when she was in third standard. Her father forced her to study because he wanted his
daughters to work and be financially independent.
Later she described her different childhood experiences, her school experiences, her
experiences of caste prejudice and also describes different festivals celebrated in their
village and how the Mahars were not allowed to participate in the festivals and how
girls were exploited after their menstrual cycle started.

During the Holi festival, the Mahars’ job was to cut the tree trunk for Holi and lug
them to the temple. They were not allowed to dance around the Holi fire like the men
of upper caste and if any Mahar was caught they would beat him very badly. The
Mahar women would beg for festive food at different houses.

Urmila didn’t like to attend school and would try to bunk school and sit at the temple.
Her mother and brother would beat her if she tried to bunk school. Urmila also gives
a description of the teachers who influenced her life. She writes about one of her
teachers, Herlekar Guruji, who was tyrannical and forced her to clean cow dung on
the school verandah, believing that it was Urmila’s cow who was the culprit. Once
Urmila refused and the Guruji slapped her very hard. But her mother stood up for her
in front of him and thus he never beat her again. She failed fourth standard but later
studied well and passed and even got a scholarship of 12 rupees.

Urmila also describes positive occasions such as weddings. Once she became a
muhurtawali at a wedding and was not allowed to eat anything till the marriage
ceremony was over. She describes her restlessness and how she never became a
muhurtawali thereafter.

Urmila was never clean in her childhood. Only once a week Aaye would clean her
hair with hot water and washing soda and comb her hair into a tight plait. The family’s
clothes were washed once a week. Urmila also had a bad habit of spitting. Her teacher,
Biwalkar madam always forced children to be neat and clean. She taught Urmila
cleanliness and that spitting is a bad habit and unhygienic.

Urmila describes different incidents of caste discrimination she had to face as a dalit.
She narrates an incident when she went along with her Muslim friends to their
relative’s house with biryani, but the relative didn’t accept it as Urmila had touched
it. She was made to sit outside the house and wasn’t allowed to come in.

Urmila also shares experiences once her menstrual cycle started. She describes how
young men would come to her house to get close with her. She has also given a
description of her meeting with her future husband, Harishchandra and how she
gradually falls in love with him and has secret meetings with him. No one in her
family approved of him and did not want her to marry Harishchandra because he had
only passed SSC and worked as a simple clerk. But Harishchandra brought his
relatives to her house one day and made a formal proposal of marriage. After much
discussion, Urmila’s brother agreed but also put forth a lot of conditions.
Urmila’s wedding was not given much importance but she was still happy. Her
wedding took place according to Buddhist rituals. She has described her in-laws. Her
mother-in-law was very generous while cooking. She cooked food more than the
required quantity and a lot would be left over. The next day she would mix it with the
other leftovers and water and give it to the animals on the farm. She would refuse to
eat the stale rice in the morning.

Urmila moved to Ratnagiri with her husband due to work. Urmila and her husband
had a lot of trouble finding a room for rent due to caste discrimination. Their
landlady’s elder daughter came to borrow a sari from Urmila. Urmila gave her own
white wedding sari to wear, upon which the daughter was dumbstruck, as she
realized they were Dalit Buddhists as Buddhist brides wore white saris at their
weddings. After a month, the sari was returned in a spoiled state, and when Urmila
complained, the landlady told her to look for another room.

Urmila became pregnant after one year and after a long time in labour pain a boy was
born, and named Mandar. As was custom she went her mother’s house after delivery.
For breastfeeding, she never had much milk. People would give different remedies to
solve this problem. When her son was two years old, Urmila became pregnant again.
She wanted a son but she gave birth to a girl. The third child was also a girl.

Urmila acted in several full-length plays like Shantata Court Chalu Ahe, Banu Natak
Karto, etc. She also went for tuition in classical music. She also bought a room in
Bandra, Mumbai. She joined an office in Mumbai. She was sent for training as a result
of which she had a lot of free time. She used the time for writing stories and publishing
them. One of her friends asked her to show her stories to Dattaram Baraskar who
worked at the Daily Nava Kal. He encouraged her a lot. Two or three stories by her
were also published in Satyakatha, a prestigious Marathi literary journal.

Urmila started writing anywhere – sitting in the office, travelling in bus or train,
waiting at bus stop or even standing in a queue. At night she would sit the kitten and
write. One day, Vaman Howal, a famous short story writer in Marathi, invited her to
read one of her stories at a Sahitya Sammelana. She hesitated but agreed. Later she got
many opportunities and progressed a lot in her path to becoming a great writer. When
she presented her most recently published book to Mr. Tamble, her senior officer, she
was praised. Her colleagues showed resentment towards her for her caste and caste
reservation in government jobs. Later Urmila became the branch manager.

Her office was quite close to Siddhartha College and thus she enrolled in B.A. course.
It was a challenge. She used to get up at 4 am and cook food and at six leave for college.
After college she rushed to work and after office she rushed home. When
examinations drew near she would leave the children in the ayah’s care and study in
the university library. She also fractured her leg when her B.A. examination was very
close. The plaster stayed on for a whole month. She became a graduate in Second Class.
Harishchandra was very happy and he would tell everyone that his wife was a
graduate and he even framed her B.A. degree certificate. Then she enrolled herself for
M.A. but then Harishchandra realized that he had lost control over his wife. There
were many arguments between them. She passed M.A. with a second class but this
time the degree was not framed by Harishchandra. He resented his wife. He wanted
her to be like the village women he had seen in his youth.

Even in the city, Urmila couldn’t escape casteism. She felt very humiliated once when
her daughter’s friend’s mother came and shouted at her for giving her child something
to eat when she belonged to a low caste. The friend’s brother had seen Baba
Ambedkar’s photo in Urmila’s house and thus relayed the news to his mother.

Hira Bansode, a good friend of Urmila’s told her about a women’s organization called
Maitrini in Dadar which discussed women’s issues. Urmila started going to the group
meeting frequently. She appreciated the frank intimacy and the supportiveness
among them.

Gradually, Urmila got initiated into the Ambedkarite movement, Dalit literature,
women’s movement, women’s literature, but she still didn’t develop her own position
regarding various issues, as her time was taken up by her job, housework, children
and education. Urmila started giving many speeches such as at a function on the
occasion of Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. She also heard many speeches that
developed her own opinions. She considered that men and women needed to stand
united in the struggle against the caste system and shouldn’t be divided on the issue,
a point of which many feminists were not aware. She came to understand more about
rationalism, humanism, scientific thinking, etc. She had found her voice at last and
reached a stage where rather than saying, ‘Why did we invite her?’ people said, ‘Good
that we invited her!’

Later on, Urmila along with other friends of her such as Hira, Meenakshi and Nanda
Lokhande started a Dalit Women’s Organization. They had to work really hard to coax
women to become their members and harder still to make them retain their
membership. Another equally difficult task was to convince the family members. They
visited the neighbouring buildings and chawls to convince them. They got mostly
harsh responses. Finally, on Saturdays some twenty to twenty-five women, educated
and uneducated, reluctantly gathered.

A particularly proud moment for Urmila was when one of her stories, ‘Kavach,’
appeared in a collection of short stories. This collection was prescribed as a textbook
for the B.A. course run by the university of Mumbai. But here another rude shock
awaited her as the story was termed ‘obscene’ and there was a furore.

One day Urmila’s sister called her to inform her that their brother’s wife had given
birth to a baby boy. Urmila went to attend the naming ceremony at Ratnagiri. She also
decided to go on a trip to the native village where she recalled all her childhood
memories.

Urmila has also given an account of her son’s death. He committed suicide by falling
down from a train due to depression and college-related stress. His death was a huge
shock for Urmila and she went through a lot of agony and turned to writing to drown
her grief. People advised her to return to work again and she did so. However,
Harishchandra sought solace in drinking. Urmila tried to break his addiction but
failed.

Around that time, Urmila’s very first short story collection, The Sixth Finger, was
published by Sambodhi Prakashan with financial assistance from the government. At
the programme for the release of her book, Sushil Kumar Shinde said, ‘This writer lost
a son, but she has given birth to another child.’

Yet another touching moment in the novel is when Urmila’s mother, Aai, dies. She
slipped and fell down in the bathroom and dislocated her pelvic bone. She was
operated upon but her body refused to accept it. All her life she had suffered pain and
had worked ceaselessly. Aai took her revenge upon life. She refused to eat anything
and didn’t listen to anybody. Finally she died and was at last at rest.

Yet more unhappiness awaited Urmila. After all the preparations for the wedding of
her eldest daughter, Malavika, was complete, the one who she loved, Ravi, proposed
to her and she accepted and refused to marry the boy selected for her. It became a
huge scandal in the family and all the relatives complained. Urmila thought and
allowed her daughter to go ahead with her love marriage. Mr. Pawar was furiously
angry. Malavika was not allowed to come home for quite some time. Urmila however,
felt that Ravi arriving at the last moment had prevent something terrible happening
in the lives of all three concerned – Malavika, Ravi, and the bridegroom. Urmila began
mending the broken relationships.

Time moved on, and gradually their wounds were healing. But at the same time new
shocks awaited Urmila. Harishchandra was diagnosed with liver cancer in the last
stage. Urmila was told he had only six months left to live and that there was no remedy.
Urmila decided not to tell her husband about his condition, thinking it was of no use
and not wanting him to suffer more. In his last months Harishchandra had a deep
desire to visit his native village. All of his relatives knew about his terrible condition
and were heartbroken. Finally the dreaded day came and Harishchandra died. Urmila
refused to perform the rituals of the widow, claiming it was nothing but a drama, a
big show. Letters of condolence kept pouring in for her.

Later on, a couple came to see Urmila with a proposal for her younger daughter,
Manini. They wanted Manini to be married to their son. The marriage did take place
 later and she seemed settled in life. Her daughters gave Urmila a lot of strength to
carry on.

Urmila ends her autobiography with some poignant thoughts. Urmila Pawar writes,
“Life has taught me many things; showed me so much; it has also lashed out at me till
I bled. I don’t know much longer I am going to live, nor do I know in what form life
is going to confront me. Let it come in any form; I am ready to face it stoically. That is
what life has taught me. This is my life and that is me.”

Urmila doesn’t whitewash or sugarcoat the difficulties she has encountered, both
personally and professionally. Her honesty in presenting her life and the daily
struggles and victories she experienced is inspiring and her autobiography, Aaydan, is
a testament to her courage and strength of character.

9. Urmila’s relationship with her husband. (Aishwarya) (SHORT NOTE)

Urmila Pawar is a female Indian writer who writes in Marathi. Her work as a writer
reflects her experiences of the difficulties of being a dalit and a woman. She was born
in the Konkan region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. She was born in a Hindu
Mahar family, belonging to a community that traditionally weaved bamboo baskets.
She has an M.A. in Marathi literature and has as won the Laxmibai Tilak award for
the best-published autobiography given by the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad for her
Marathi autobiography, Aaydan, which has been translated into English as The Weave
of My Life.

Urmila Pawar has recounted three generations of Dalit women who struggled to
overcome the burden of their caste. Dalit or untouchables make up India’s poorest
class. Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature for centuries
and were therefore forced to live in isolated communities. Urmila Pawar discusses in
the novel three phases of her life – childhood, marriage and becoming an activist and
a writer.

Urmila Pawar’s marriage had had its own effect on her life, and her spouse played an
important part in her life. She first met her future husband, Harishchandra Pawar
when she was in 8th standard. He often visited Urmila’s house. Slowly, Urmila and
Harishchandra started meeting and chatting for long hours. Urmila’s family knew
about these conversations but they only saw Harishchandra as a friend and not an
appropriate spouse for Urmila’s marriage as he had only passed 10th standard and
worked as a clerk. Urmila was spied upon by her family members on her meetings
with Harishchandra, so they started meeting secretly. Gradually their relationship
grew stronger.

Harishchandra got a job in the post office at Ratnagiri. He also enrolled himself in the
nearby college but could not continue his studies beyond the Intermediate level as he
would be transferred quite often.
Urmila was distracted by Harishchandra during her schooldays. Luckily he was
transferred to Alibaug and she could concentrate on her studies in her final year. She
also improved her essay writing as a result of writing nice long letters to
Harishchandra in a very ornate language.

After her matriculation exam and her elder sister’s wedding, marrying Urmila off
became an issue of utmost importance on her brother’s agenda. No one at home
approved of her lover and they believed that she could easily get a much better and
more educated match than Harishchandra. However, Urmila rejected the young man
they invited to their house. Then they sent her to Mumbai where they hoped to fix her
marriage. Harishchandra’s visits to Mumbai became more frequent.

One day Harishchandra arrived at Urmila’s brother’s house with his relatives and
made a formal proposal of marriage. By that time, Urmila’s vahini (sister-in-law) was
in favour of their marriage and the opposition of the others had also weakened. Thus
after many hurdles their marriage was approved. Urmila’s wedding was not
celebrated with much fanfare or given a lot of importance but she was still happy. Her
wedding took place according to Buddhist rites, and she has recaptured the whole
ritual in detail. She was originally called Vimal, but she was given a new name at her
wedding – Urmila.

Urmila’s mother still found a way to insult Harishchandra in some ways after the
marriage. When the couple visited Urmila’s mother’s place for a visit on the third day
of their marriage, as per custom, she gave them some cheap shellfish as a gift.

Urmila has revealed that her first night was not at all what she expected to be. Her
husband was disappointed and complained in the morning that she was too frigid
and nervous. At the same time, Harishchandra was happy with his wife as it was proof
that she was a virgin. Urmila mistook the blood from her first time for periods.

Urmila liked Harishchandra’s village, Bhiraunde. It was a beautiful view, with blue
mountain ranges on the horizon, dense greenery at the foothills, houses with saffron
tiled roofs and square patches of green farms all around. Urmila also liked her mother-
in-law very much and would always compare Aai with her Sasu. Her sasu was very
generous. Urmila lived more happily at her in-laws’ house than her own mother’s
house. Later she moved with her husband to Chiplun but they faced caste
discrimination when renting rooms. Soon Harishchandra was transferred from
Chiplun to Ratnagiri. Urmila became pregnant a year into her marriage and gave birth
to a baby boy. She also subsequently had two girls. Later the family moved to Mumbai.

Urmila always felt that since Harishchandra had to leave his education halfway he
must complete it; and at least should be a graduate. But Harishchandra was more
interested in sports. Later Urmila admitted herself to Siddhartha College to complete
her education, with Harishchandra hesitatingly giving her his permission. She
completed her B.A. Harishchandra was very happy and would tell everybody that his
wife was a graduate. He also framed the B.A. certificate and hung it on a wall.
Encouraged, Urmila confidently enrolled for an M.A, but Harishchandra felt that was
going too far. He firmly believed that looking after the house was the sole
responsibility of a woman. They started fighting and arguing. When Urmila passed
M.A. examination, there was no reaction from her husband. But he still told his friends
without fail that his wife was now an M.A. graduate. The M.A. degree certificate was
not framed.

Harishchandra also had a negative attitude towards Urmila’s organization for dalit
women. He always told her to stop all of her social work and pay attention towards
her children, the house, and satisfy her husband. In his youth, Harishchandra had seen
dutiful village women, and thus wanted his wife to be like them. But Urmila was quite
different from his mindset.

Urmila’s daughter, Malavika, when interviewed one time by a magazine, said that she
and her siblings felt that it was Harishchandra who was more responsible for the
tensions in the house than Urmila. Malavika claimed her mother felt like a friend and
understood her. Urmila did not dare to show the interview to her husband as she
feared he would have become more furious. She felt he would have dug things up
from the past and more fights would have ensued.

After their only son’s death, Mr. Pawar started drinking. Urmila tried very hard to
stop his addiction, but he in turn asked her to stop her social work. She could not
accept this. Urmila confesses that by that time, it was too late for either of them to give
up their respective addictions. Once Urmila dragged her reluctant husband to a
function. When it was time for his drinking session Mr. Pawar got up to go. An artist
asked him why he was leaving and he stated that it was the time when water was
available in their house and that he had to go fill it up. Urmila laughed at his
histrionics. After a few days, Urmila heard the artist telling his friends, “The poor
husband was going to store water at home and this shameless woman was laughing!”
Urmila comments, “How easily mean appear ‘poor’ and women ‘shameless!’”

More unhappiness awaited the couple. After all the preparations for the wedding of
her eldest daughter, Malavika, was complete, the one who she loved, Ravi, proposed
to her and she accepted and refused to marry the boy selected for her. It became a
huge scandal in the family. Urmila thought and allowed her daughter to go ahead
with her love marriage. Mr. Pawar was despondent. He was angry whenever he saw
Urmila and said, “This woman has ruined my family. Because of her I lost face in the
community She considers herself so intelligent! But she is plain stupid! She is selfish,
useless, shameless!” His anger found expression in these and many filthier words.

Mr. Pawar felt very happy if someone whom he knew even slightly came to see him.
He kept talking on the telephone for hours on end. After he retired as a postmaster
the amount of time on his hands frightened him. If visitors sympathised with him on
his sorrows, he would complain to them about Urmila.

Time moved on, and gradually their wounds were healing. But at the same time new
shocks awaited. Harishchandra was diagnosed with liver cancer in the last stage.
Urmila was told he had only six months left to live and that there was no remedy.
Urmila decided not to tell her husband about his condition, thinking it was of no use
and not wanting him to suffer more.

In his last months, Harishchandra had a deep desire to visit his native village. All of
his relatives knew about his terrible condition and were heartbroken. Urmila was
blamed for Harishchandra’s illness. Finally, the dreaded day came and Harishchandra
died. Urmila had to endure the agony and grief at the death of both her son and
husband. Harishchandra was cremated in an electric crematorium.

Urmila refused to perform the traditional rituals of the widow, such as breaking of the
bangles and mangal sutra, rubbing off the kumkum, pulling out the flowers from the
hair. She felt it was nothing but a drama, a big show and a relic of the past. Before her
husband’s death she was not particular about wearing mangal sutra. But after his
death she started wearing it deliberately. Letters of condolence kept pouring in for her.
Urmila says in her autobiography:

“I remembered every moment of his life that I knew.

Harishchandra as a child, hanging onto his mother’s back,
demanding molasses; as a young student, staying with his
mama; then in the boarding school at Dapoli; as a young activist,
clinging to every word that Babasaheb Ambedkar spoke; the shy
man sitting in Khedaskar’s house in Ratnagiri; the young suitor,
and then as a husband and a father. So many images of
Harishchandra danced around me – even that of the father who
had performed the last rites of his son and was now on the same
path. It hurt so terribly.”

Urmila acknowledged that her husband was basically not all that hard-hearted. He
had adopted a public posture. His values, morality and prestige was very important
to him. Even when he was angry with Urmila or shouted at her, his words had lost
their sharp edge. Both Urmila and Harishchandra were well aware that their home
was dependent on their joint support. Urmila Pawar has highlighted incidents when
her husband supported her education or her writing.

“I’ll never forget to my dying day the happy, adoring smile on Mr. Pawar’s face, when
some journalists came home to interview me.”
10. Urmila’s children. (Aishwarya) (SHORT NOTE)
Urmila Pawar is a female Indian writer who writes in Marathi. Her work as a writer
reflects her experiences of the difficulties of being a dalit and a woman. She was born
in the Konkan region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. She was born in a Hindu
Mahar family, belonging to a community that traditionally weaved bamboo baskets.
She has an M.A. in Marathi literature and has as won the Laxmibai Tilak award for
the best-published autobiography given by the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad for her
Marathi autobiography, Aaydan, which has been translated into English as The Weave
of My Life, which depicts the lives of different members of her family, her husband’s
family, her neighbours and classmates that are woven together in a narrative which
reveals the different aspects of the everyday life of Dalits, their lack of education and
knowledge, and the manifold ways in which caste asserts itself and grinds them down.

Urmila Pawar got married to her lover, Harishchandra, after many difficulties and
hurdles. The couple moved to Ratnagiri shortly after their marriage, when Urmila’s
husband was shifted there. A year into the marriage, Urmila became pregnant and
gave birth to a boy who was named Mandar. Harishchandra and Urmila were
delirious with happiness. They went to her mother’s house as per custom. Urmila
however, couldn’t breastfeed the baby as she never had much milk in her and she also
found nursing painful. She couldn’t stand to watch her mother doing unhygienic
practices whole bathing her grandson and finally started bathing the baby herself.

When Mandar was two years old, Urmila found herself pregnant again. She wanted
another son so she could go through the family planning operation. But the second
child was a girl. So Harishchandra said, ‘Let’s take one more chance.’ But once again
it was a girl. Urmila jokes how simple and easy having a baby seemed, like saying
‘let’s have one more cup of tea!’ Their children called Urmila Aai and Harishchandra
Anna, even though it was getting fashionable to call one’s parents Mummy and Papa.
They didn’t give up their Marathi spirit.

Urmila enrolled herself for a B.A. She still took care of the house, children and cooking.
The children were enrolled in a Marathi medium municipal school. Urmila and
Harishchandra were happy as they passed examinations with merit, studied on their
own, were well-behaved and did not have to endure the poverty and insults which
they had experienced in their childhood.

Urmila’s children still felt caste discrimination, in subtle ways. When Urmila’s
youngest daughter Manini had a birthday celebration, she invited her friend Kishori
and her brother to eat the cake with them. Kishori’s brother told his mother that he
had seen photographs of Ambedkar and Buddha in their house. The next day,
Kishori’s mother came and abused Urmila without stepping inside, asking her why
she did not say she belonged to low-caste. The woman asked her to not give her
daughter anything to eat if she came to their house, stating that they were Marathas
and could not eat with Urmila’s family. After the incident, Kishori stopped coming to
their house, and Manini complained to Urmila that she would not talk to her, but after
some days Kishori started coming again. Urmila thought there was a lesson for the
grownups in this.

Later on, Urmila’s son, Mandar, even committed suicide to the bias against him.
Mandar was very intelligent. He passed his tenth standard examination with excellent
marks. Two years later he quite effortlessly found a place in the medical college after
completing his school leaving examinations. The first year had been quite stressful.
During the second year, he had felt the stress again and again. Even when Urmila
expressed her concerns to his father, Harishchandra had simply scolded his son for
not paying more attention to studies. Urmila and Harishchandra had not realized
what was happening to him. One day Mandar had returned from the hostel and said
that he did not want to study in that college anymore and wanted to change his college,
but his father dismissed him. Finally he jumped in front of a train. Urmila’s heart was
broken to bits. Later, one of Urmila’s friends told her that her husband taught in the
same college and that everyone was very anti-reservation there. Urmila laments at
that point,

“The opposition is on levels … explicit … implicit … My brother

had ended his life out of frustration and now my son had chosen
the same path!”

Urmila had wanted her son to become a doctor. But since that was impossible, she
made her daughters take admission in science courses. They were affected by the
tragedy too. Malavika, the elder one, studied science for two years after her tenth
standard and then went back to arts. She did an M.A. B.Ed., also passed five
examinations in music. The younger one, Manini, did a B.Sc., followed by diploma
courses in pathology and computer science. She also learnt kathak and became a
professional dancer. Both of them work as teachers and teach music and dance in the
present day.

Urmila often wondered if things would have been different if she had not dedicated
so much time to her education, writing and social work. She got some answers to these
questions from an interview of Malavika in a magazine. Malavika said, “We tell her
everything. Even if I fall in love, I don’t think I’ll hide it. I’m sure she’ll understand
me. She is a friend now!”

Urmila thought her daughter’s interview was no less than a certificate given to her for
being a friend. But later on Urmila realised that she was wrong. Their children still
kept their distance from her. There were many reasons for this. First, they were given
what their parents had not got in their childhoods; but their needs had increased
compared to their parents and Urmila and Harishchandra had not realized their
children were different from them. The children experienced the gap between their
lives and that of their friends. They could not speak about these things to Urmila and
Harishchandra explicitly. They felt some emotional insecurity, a void inside.

All three children felt that Urmila and Harishchandra should have put them in
English-medium schools, so that at least they would have been saved from developing
a linguistic inferiority complex. They were terribly oppressed by this complex. Urmila
realized it too late. She regrets: “If you do not keep up with the times, you get beaten!”

Her daughters also told Urmila one day that the ayahs whom she used to employ
often beat them up after their parents went to the office. Pinching, boxing ears, stealing
money was an everyday affair. But the children never shared this with their parents.
They felt distrust towards their parents and had a fear of retaliation from the ayah.

Urmila had reassured Malavika to be open with her, to tell her if she loved someone.
But even after this honest assurance, her daughter did not open her heart to Urmila.
Her parents arranged her marriage with a young man. But after all the wedding
preparations were made, the man Malavika loved, Ravi, proposed to her and she
accepted him. She refused to marry the bridegroom. It caused a huge scandal in the
family. All the relatives were furious. Urmila thought calmly and allowed Malavika
to go through with her love marriage. She didn’t want all three people to have their
lives ruined. Harishchandra was furious. Malavika was not allowed to come home.

Yet the affair didn’t end there. The family of the young man who was supposed to
marry Malavika wanted to marry him to Manini, Urmila’s younger daughter as
compensation. But Manini had no wish to marry him and her parents stopped the
matter there. Manini was quite furious at Malavika and Ravi for causing such a huge
hassle and having escaped scot-free. Later on, after Harishchandra’s death, a couple
came to see Urmila with a proposal for Manini. They wanted Manini to be married to
their son. The marriage did take place and she seemed settled in her life. Urmila’s
daughters gave her a lot of strength to carry on.

Urmila Pawar has looked at herself frankly and has not shied away from revealing
her flaws in her autobiography. She has admitted she could have been a better mother
to her children but she was busy with everything at the same time – her education,
her job, social work, looking after the children’s needs, keeping the house, satisfying
her husband’s wishes. Yet her children have stated that they were more comfortable
around their mother than their father. Urmila has revealed that she grieved more over
her son’s death than her husband’s: “The death of your own flesh and blood is much
more agonizing than that of your kumkum mark.” Thus, Urmila has given an honest
account of her relationship with her children.
11. Ganapati festival (SHORT NOTE) (Aishwarya)
After Urmila’s father’s death her mother never visited Phansawale village, not even
for festivals. Urmila and her siblings rarely visited the village for the Gauri and
Ganapati festivals as it would be the rainy season and the rivers and streams on the
way would be flooded. In their entire neighbourhood they and a couple of other
houses would celebrate the Ganapati festival at home. Everyone would come to
Urmila’s house for singing religious prayers and bhajans. The house was full of girls
and children during the day. At night women, especially those visiting their parental
home for the festival, would gather in the front courtyard and play various games.
These married girls would share with each other stories of their married lives, crying
and laughing over their sad and happy experiences.

Women worked very hard to prepare for the festival and earned a little extra money
by selling money by selling more grass and firewood bundles, which they saved for
the festival. They bought new clothes, bangles, necklaces and such things for their
children. They would also get tattoos on their and their daughters’ foreheads, arms
and hands from tattooing women. They swept their houses clean; polished the floor,
walls, small alcoves, corners of rooms with cow dung, went to the river to bathe,
dressed in new saris and blouses and got all decked up, wearing cheap ornaments
bought from the bazaar shops. They would tie up their hair in a tight bunch.

All this preparation was for the programme at night when the women danced and
played various games like zimma and phugadya, in front of Ganapati. They nudged
each other, urging their friends to dance. They sang many songs, dancing in a circle,
bending forwards and backwards, snapping their fingers to keep rhythm. The songs
reflected their hard lives. Someone with a good voice sand the others repeated the
song after her. Urmila has recounted a song here, about a suffering new daughter-
in-law who weeps and wishes for her brother to come and take her away for the
Gauri festival. The women sang this and many such songs in singsong tunes.
Sometimes they remembered their own brothers and sisters and wiped the tears in
their eyes.

Special dishes for the festival were made from rice flour. Modak with rice flour was
cooked with molasses and coconut. In her community, Urmila’s mother was the only
one who could make modak well. It was not an easy dish to make but aaye had
mastered the art. She had travelled with her husband on his working days, so she
knew quite a few recipes. But she did not make such delicacies often, after Baba’s
death. Amongst Urmila’s neighbours in the village, nobody even knew what a
modak looked like. Thus, Urmila Pawar has vividly captured the celebration of
Ganapati festival in her village.
12. Dasherra festival (SHORT NOTE) (Aishwarya)
Urmila would spend most of her holidays along with her cousins at her elder sister,
Akka’s place. Akka had shifted her house from the Bhangi chawl to a more middle-
class neighbourhood. Akka’s neighbours, all hospital workers, would celebrate the
Dasherra festival in a great way. They would make huge bundis, ladoos and distribute
them among people.

Urmila remembers Dasherra also for its festive atmosphere. The huge laddus that
were given, the gudhi or decorated pole that Akka were erected at the door, the
decoration of flowers and sugar ring around gudhi, the wonderful puranpoli that
Akka made, the procession of colourful rabuts of Moharram which they watched
along with the crowd, the jaggery rings, tied like a watch on their wrists, which they
liked to eat happily, the colourful sky lamps they made for Diwali, sitting out late at
night – all of these things provided a bright dimension to the drab and dull routine
followed in Urmila’s house.

When Urmila was once at Akka’s house for Diwali she learned about delicacies like
ladu and karanjya which were made specially for Diwali. She had learnt the recipes
from her friends.